Chinese passengers took 70.9m international air trips from Chinese airports last year, a rise of 11.7%, according to official figures released by the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC).

 

This compared with 760.6m domestic air trips between Chinese airports, which increased by 10.1% in the calendar year period.

 

This data was based on CAAC statistics, which recognise 202 mainland Chinese airports, with 200 acknowledged to have handled regular flights in 2014.

 

It also brought the grand total of Chinese airline passengers to 831.5m in 2014 – equivalent to a 10.2% rise in overall passengers compared with 2013.

 

 

The CAAC reports that airports in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou accounted for a share of 28.3% of all these trips, as Beijing Capital International Airport retained its title as China’s busiest airport facility, processing a total of more than 86.1m (+2.9%) flights last year.

[Of course, none of these statistics include the millions of land border passengers travelling between Mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau-Ed].

3.6BN CHINESE DOMESTIC TRIPS
All Chinese airports also reported handling a total of 13.6m tonnes of cargo last year – an increase of 7.8% compared with 2013.

[In separate results, the China National Tourism Administration (CNTA) has estimated that Chinese tourists made a total of 3.6bn domestic trips in 2014 – an increase of 10%-Ed].

Meanwhile, the CNTA has also confirmed that it has started to address its new domestic tourism campaign to crack down on rogue traders who abuse the system.

‘Issues’ it is currently addressing include ‘market monopolies, illegal business operations, bullying of tourists and forced shopping’.

This has involved the CNTA shutting down some operations where it feels that they do not meet the required quality standards.

According to its site, the CNTA says that it will now turn its attention to eradicating illegal one-day tours and other ‘budget’ excursions offered to locals and foreign visitors to China.

The CNTA also says that it plans to create a database of Chinese tourists who have behaved badly overseas, in order to prevent them from travelling if they tarnish the country’s image with bad behaviour.